This proposal seeks financial support for participation of US students, postdoctoral fellows and invited speakers at CNS*2009, an annual international computational neuroscience conference. CNS*2009 is being held under the aegis of the Organization for Computational Neurosciences, Inc. a US not-for-profit 501(c)(3) serving the needs of an international community of scientists actively engaged in using quantitative tools to address questions in neuroscience. The Specific Aims of CNS*2009 are 1) To provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of computational and theoretical models and quantitative data analyses to explain the dynamics of neural systems, in particular the brain, in health and disease across multiple scales;2) To provide a rich learning environment for students and postdoctoral fellows through tutorials and workshops led by experts;3) To engage the computational and experimental neuroscience communities in the emerging field of Neuroinformatics though a special lecture series and symposium.;4) To disseminate the conference abstracts through open-access publication accessible by the world-wide web and 5) To foster international collaboration. The conference will bring together, a large body of international scientists working across scales (molecular to systems) and disciplinary roots (biology to mathematics to computational neuroscience) in Berlin, Germany. The conference will leverage the considerable investment of the Federal Education Ministry to support international attendance. The conference will include tutorials and workshops, and invited speakers and solicit for peer review abstracts and papers that include experimental, computational, engineering and theoretical approaches in neuroscience for contributed talks and posters. It will offer a forum that not only strengthens links between quantitative and experimental neurosciences, but is sufficiently broad enough to allow a discussion of interlinked neural systems at multiple scales that is needed to understand the broad spectrum impact of neurological disorders, neurotrauma, and drug addiction on neural behavior, plasticity and function. It will also be an attractive platform for fostering the budding field of Neuroinformatics. The conference will emphasize involvement of young transdisciplinary scientists, including women and other underrepresented groups in sciences in all facets, including programmatic leadership. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This proposal seeks support to defray partial costs for participation of US students, postdoctoral fellows and invited speakers at CNS*2009, the eighteenth annual international computational neuroscience conference to be held July 18-23rd 2009, in Berlin, Germany.